Tamil Nadu news live: State vaccinating only 37,000 a day

Chief secretary Rajeev Ranjan said the public should cooperate for effective containment of the virus. “The management of industries, shopping complexes, private organisations, offices and restaurants should ensure thermal scanning, use of hand sanitisers and wearing of face masks by their employees, officials and the public. Persons without face masks should not be allowed to enter the premises,” he said in an order. The government also set up field-level teams of IAS officers, supported by revenue, police and health officials for each of the 15 zones in Chennai, and engaged monitoring officers for each district, to intensify containment measures. Public and private intrastate buses, including Metropolitan Transport Corporation services in Chennai, would be permitted with the passengers restricted to seating capacity. This applies to buses being operated to Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka too.

Governor Banwarilal Purohit has urged people to follow the government’s instructions to fight the pandemic. He requested all people to wear masks compulsorily, maintain social distancing and sanitise hands regularly, a release said.

Andhra Pradesh has just 1.4 lakh doses of vaccine stock remaining, or for a little over a day, given that it is has averaged over 1.1 lakh doses a day since April 1. Much will depend on how soon the 14.6 lakh doses that are in the pipeline for the state reach it. Bihar is in a similar situation with 2.6 lakh doses remaining against a daily average vaccination of 1.7 lakh. Of the large states, Tamil Nadu seems to be most comfortably placed with stocks of nearly 17 lakh doses — and that’s because its average vaccination level in the last week has been a very low 37,000. Most of the other states with weeks of stocks are the smaller ones and Union territories.

Footfalls at tourist spots along East Coast Road including at the world heritage monuments in Mamallapuram have dropped after the recent spike in Covid-19 cases. The number of tourists including from the city and the rest of TN as well as from neighbouring states has dropped by 40% compared with the figures in the last week of March. While the footfalls fell from nearly 1,000 a day to 600 a day during weekdays, it fell from 4,500-6,000 on weekends in February to 2,800-3,000 now. The boathouse at Muutukadu, maintained by the Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC), has also reported a substantial drop in visitors.

Active cases in Tamil Nadu crossed the 30,000 mark on Thursday with the state recording 4,276 new cases and 19 deaths. The state’s Covid cases tally reached 9.15 lakh and the cumulative death toll stood at 12,840. Public health officials said the number of active cases in the state doubled from 5,149 on March 15 to 10, 487 on March 25. In the next nine days, on April 3, there were 20,204 active cases.

As cases continue to increase, hospitals in high incidence districts are filling up quickly. While people will have access to a number of beds in private hospitals through the health department webpage, screening centres at various PHCs and emergency units in hospital will triage patient and send them to covid care centres, health centres or government medical college hospitals for primary, secondary and tertiary care. This will

While fever camps will be held across the state, corporations and local bodies will hold doorto-door surveillance in containment areas. A building with three households and a street with three houses will be declared a containment area in cities. Health authorities have been asked to track down at least 30 contacts of positive cases within 72 hrs. Those violating home isolation will be moved to Covid care centres. The state will also fine people sans masks or those who fail to maintain social distancing. Health officials, police and revenue officials can levy penalties on violations under the TN Public Health Act.

After vaccinating about 1.2 lakh people a day, the recipient numbers in TN came down drastically in the last one week as most health workers were posted as polling staff. The state is targeting 3 lakh vaccinations – first and second dose included – a day across the state. The state has so far received 54.85 lakh doses of vaccines, with a stock of nearly 17 lakh doses.

Early identification of positive cases with aggressive testing will aid early isolation, treatment and prevent transmission and deaths. The state’s new target is to reduce the test positivity rate below 5 in all high incidence districts and below 1 in low incidence districts. On an average the state now tests 85,000 people, which will go up to a lakh in 10 days.

The core committee for prevention and management of Covid-19 headed by chief secretary Rajeev Ranjan ruled out chances of a complete lockdown in Tamil Nadu, but planned scaling down of indoor non-essential activities. On Thursday, health secretary J Radhakrishnan, in an interview to TOI, said the directorate of public health has worked out four strategies to aggressively rein in the pandemic curve in Tamil Nadu.

The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday announced new measures to check the second surge of Covid-19 cases, putting the onus on industries, shopping complexes, offices and restaurants to ensure people wore masks and followed other pandemic protocol. The public is barred from all places of worship, which can follow essential rituals with only staff in attendance but will have to shut by 8 pm from April 10. Retail fruit and vegetable shops at the Koyambedu complex here will be also be shut from that date. The government has urged people aged above 45 years to get vaccinated in government hospitals and recognized private hospitals within two weeks. Industries should arrange for vaccination of their employees based on the guidelines issued by the Centre and stern action would be taken for violation of standard operating procedures.